Indian and African Women in a New Orleans Convent

Sophie K. White juxtaposes the life stories of two women living in the Ursuline convent of New Orleans in the mid-eighteenth century. One, Marie Turpin, was the legitimate daughter of a Frenchman and his Illinois Indian wife and became a nun in the convent. But the Ursulines only accorded her the spiritual rank of a lay (domestic) nun, a role she fulfilled “with much courage, being vigilant, strong, adroit, and of great cleanliness.” The other woman, Babette, was a slave of African descent who was mortally wounded by a French soldier while doing the laundry. Pressed for a formal statement, the Ursulines responded that they would rather their slave die than do anything against “the charity owed to” fellow French men and women. Considered together, these two life stories allow for an investigation of the limits of inclusiveness towards non-French women in Lower Louisiana. They also reveal how women accustomed to writing biographies for every member of their order responded when required to describe female ‘others.’